Absurdist Interview: Fashion designer Raphael Lobello

Fashion Denver's in-house French fashion designer and artist Raphael Lobello grew up in a fort built in the 1200s. After studying screen printing in Grenoble for two years, Lobello moved near Toulouse and studied fashion design for three more before coming to Denver, where he is learning English and making one-of-a-kind garments for the denizens of our fine city. Brandi Shigley, owner of Fashion Denver said, "His sewing is amazing." Influenced by outsider art, particularly the work of Jean Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, Lobello likes to mix paint with fabric to make clothing that is bold and colorful, with influences from native African art as well. With Brandi Shigley as our translator, we sat down with Lobello at Fashion Denver and got inside his head about nothing related to any of those things.

Raphael with a costume in the works, commissioned for a Thanksgiving shindig